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Intermingled Formations
Evil and Chaos
 Post subject: Intermingled Formations
PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 3:20 pm 
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I'm with Neal on this one.

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Ginger
 Post subject: Intermingled Formations
PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 6:31 pm 
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I am also with Neal here. IMO This is one of those occasions where playability or 'the game' takes precedence over "reality" or 'the simulation'. Think of it a bit like a knights 'fork' or even a 'fools mate' in chess - something that you learn very early on and then rarely see without significant amount of effort by one or other participant.

However, that said, I always get confused between this ruling, and that of Assault support, where the supporting formation must be in range of the assault, not merely in range of the target formation. So, using Muad'Dib's diagram, the black units are not allowed to support Red's assault on Blue, while the Green formation may do so.




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Markconz
 Post subject: Intermingled Formations
PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 9:59 pm 
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(nealhunt @ Jan. 04 2008,13:15)
QUOTE
Keeping it a flat 15cm-from-attacker leaves other, equally goony exploits in place.  A horde army could easily surround a valuable formation, being intimately intermingled with it, yet still have the guarded units more than 15cm from the formation edge, making it impossible to assault except by exceptional circumstances or abilities.

"Oh, look, my Deathstrikes are 16cm away from your forces.  Even though their entire screen of 100+ men were just crushed in assault and the DS are threatened with being overrun at any second, they stand their ground and don't even gain a blast marker."

The difference is that the potential "victim" of the exploit can avoid it under the current rule.  Under the flat-15, the victim cannot avoid it.

What is to stop a horde army doing this now? You just move your units a bit and there is no intermingling, but still 16cm distance and those Deathstrikes still cannot be assaulted, and the 'exploit' as you call it is still in place with the current rules.

(That means you have to hack your way past a defending formation to get to the units behind it, regardless of how the rule is written. Isn't that the whole point of having a defending formation though?)

The rule as written doesn't help here in the situation you describe that I can see, and causes problems elsewhere.

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nealhunt
 Post subject: Intermingled Formations
PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 11:24 pm 
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The difference is that it's not nearly as effective to surround the protected formation with a ring as it is to be intimately intermingled.  Air assaults, for example, are vastly different in the two situations.

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Markconz
 Post subject: Intermingled Formations
PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 11:35 pm 
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Air assaults would be the only real difference I can see, but sorry even in that case I still fail to see why it would be such a problem, or even a problem at all for that matter.

I mean we've been playing this mod for long enough, and I have yet to see any of these theoretical problems people insist would happen.

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Muad'Dib
 Post subject: Intermingled Formations
PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 11:50 am 
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(Ginger @ Jan. 04 2008,17:31)
QUOTE
I am also with Neal here. IMO This is one of those occasions where playability or 'the game' takes precedence over "reality" or 'the simulation'. Think of it a bit like a knights 'fork' or even a 'fools mate' in chess - something that you learn very early on and then rarely see without significant amount of effort by one or other participant.

Indeedy - the defending player can avoid this with careful positioning.

My point is - why should he have to?

The only reaon to carefully position your formations 6cm apart is to avoid the effects of a pointess abstract rule. Or rather, interpretation - I think the real meaning got lost with "what happens to units in destroyed transports?".

The difference with a fool's mate is that in Epic, you might have perfectly sound reasons for squashing your formations together - limited space, formations unable to move due to orders/broken, etc etc.  Worrying about my opponent exploiting an inadvertant loophole in the rules is unsporting, and not E:A.  It's up there with aircraft sniping!

It doesn't help "playability", the game would be just as playable with the rule re-phrased or scrapped altogether.
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Evil and Chaos
 Post subject: Intermingled Formations
PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 1:45 pm 
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The only reaon to carefully position your formations 6cm apart is to avoid the effects of a pointess abstract rule.



Being intermingled is the flip-side of being able to declair a Combined Engagement; If you want to try pulling off a combined engagement in the following turn, you're going to have to intermingle yourself.

That's the tactical choice you make, and really you should almost never be intermingled under other circumstances.



Note that none of the above apply to Tau because they're speshul and can use their 'combined engagement' analogue (Coordinated fire) without risking themselves in an intermingled situation.




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BlackLegion
 Post subject: Intermingled Formations
PostPosted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 12:58 am 
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I would support a rule which says, that the attacked can chose to declare his attacked formation as intermingled if another friendly formation is withing 5cm.
Thus strengthening his own defensive abilities in boosting his number of troops and be able to countercharge with more units.

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Ginger
 Post subject: Intermingled Formations
PostPosted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 2:13 am 
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"Playability" may have been a slightly inappropriate word Muad'Dib, and I do understand the sense of foul-play that you and others consider this rule to represent. As Neal said earlier, the Epic community has been divided over this for a long time, and we are re-hashing many of the arguments (and suggestions) made earlier. On the one side, proponents believe that they should be able to exploit a mistaken deployment while opponents feel this is "un-realistic" or exploitative. Your comments on space are interesting as this precise aspect has been exploited by commanders down the ages and is one of the key ways that a numerically inferior force is able to defeat a numerically superior one - one of the better examples being Cannae.

My reasons for keeping this in place are as follows:-
- It does reward "cunning" play and can produce a more dramatic result.
- Both sides are aware of the possibilities, so can exploit the situation either way
- It does not have to be as negative as it seems, depending upon the formations involved, their relative positions, the point this occurs during the game etc. For example, formations broken this way can be moved to more advantageous positions, and can recover (given luck and the right circumstances) - this is especially true of "fearless" troops.
- If we leave the rule in place, the effects can be reduced by "house-rule" by those with strongly held ?opposing views. However, if removed, it is harder to use a "house-rule" to return to this position because people are generally less willing to increase damage using a House-rule.

Perhaps better wording might be "characterfull", "colourfull" or even "rewarding" rather than "playable", but in any event, I would prefer to keep this rather than remove it.




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Markconz
 Post subject: Intermingled Formations
PostPosted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 3:12 am 
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(Ginger @ Jan. 07 2008,00:13)
QUOTE
Your comments on space are interesting as this precise aspect has been exploited by commanders down the ages and is one of the key ways that a numerically inferior force is able to defeat a numerically superior one - one of the better examples being Cannae.

?? Cannae and anything historical I am aware of provides in absolutely NO way justification for the intermingling rule as written.

At Cannae the Romans were sucked forward by a weak centre. The Roman cavalry wings were overun (being outnumbered almost 2 to 1 by Gallic and Numidian Cavalry)  and the Carthaginian Cavalry fell upon the flanks and rear of the Roman infantry.  Yes there was a mass of dying and clumped romans after they were getting attacked from all 4 directions. Cannae is just the classic pincher movement by a superior cavalry force and has nothing to do with the bizarre intermingling effects in Epic that are the problem described by Muad'Dib, and continuously raised by other people over the last few years.

I don't mind being proved wrong in these discussions, but the more I hear on this issue, the more the justification for this rule seems to be have been spawned in a confused ignorance of real military history. Rather I see fantastical interpretations of history being used as justifications.

The only real arguments I've seen for it are much more subjective, and basically boil down to 'it produces a more playable game' at Epic scale. Eg.

"I think that the intermingling helps playability as it causes too foolhardy maneuvers to be risky. You can't put a single scout formation to fill too great area as it can be cause intermingling and crushing far larger body of troops."


However,  I'd argue that putting a scout formation over a large distance (which one of their roles after all) already has plenty of risks - including that they can come under fire and be attacked from almost anywhere. That limits it pretty well in games I've played. It doesn't need any highly dubious, controversial and unrealistic intermingling rule modifier on top.

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nealhunt
 Post subject: Intermingled Formations
PostPosted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 5:13 pm 
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This is long and somewhat rambling...
===

I think the combined assault argument might go either way.  Commander ability is notoriously weak due to the intermingling vulnerability.  Allowing them to "command from the rear" as it were while avoiding being intermingled unless directly engaged would be a serious boost for Commanders.  So, the question then would be whether or not it would be appropriate for Commanders to automatically be at risk when positioned for the combined assault.

If it should be vulnerable for background or game balance reasons, then it stays as-is.  If not (to boost Commander, perhaps), then a 15cm requirement would be better.

Likewise, to me this would seem to support the opposite side of the argument for which it was intended just as easily:
you might have perfectly sound reasons for squashing your formations together - limited space, formations unable to move due to orders/broken, etc etc.

If the army got trapped in constricted terrain or you have command and control difficulties, those are tactical problems.  That seems to me to be exactly the kind of thing the enemy is supposed to be able to take advantage of.  Finer points of military history and specific battles aside, I'm sure no one would dispute there are many real world examples of poor terrain use or garbled orders or undisciplined troops that result in major defeats.

===

The above examples show how the same fact pattern can reinforce either viewpoint.  The majority of the arguments about this seem to be a matter of subjective judgments of scale and the concept of how the game should play.

What's your concept of "Commander"?  To what extent should a player be penalized for things beyond control (failed activation dice)?  For things in their control (choice of terrain use)?

If you think of the "turning a flank" as a successful clipping attack, then it would take a series of successful clips to truly flank an army and perhaps it should be more difficult to intermingle.  If you think of "turning the flank" in terms of large portions of an army crumbling in short order due to a confluence of many factors, then the way it is works fine.

The extent to which you think "preventability" impacts the fairness of the rules is another major determinant in opinions on the rule.  If you think it's cheesy to be busted by a few mm of spacing, regardless of whether it's preventable, then the rule should be changed.  If you think being able to prevent it is a major mitigating factor on whether it is a problem, then it's okay as-is.

===

There is also a lack of good playtest data as situations where this is a real issue are just not common and either way, the rule is easily accounted for by the players.

I've had few problems with being "caught" intermingled for years because we know to avoid it.  When I have been caught, it's been because I knowingly maneuvered into a confined space, accepting the risk that the enemy might take advantage, or because I was just blatantly careless.  Others report similar results.

OTOH, Mark, Muad'Dib and sundry say they've played with the 15cm requirement for years and not had anyone cause problems with it, either.  That, of course, begs the question of to what extent people have tried to exploit it but even the theoretical exploits I can think of are not tremendously problematic.

===

In the end I'm not sure on this.  To be honest, I think that the primary reason I left it is because it just didn't seem to be an insurmountable problem either way.

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